Kyrie Eleison - Lord, Have Mercy
by Alezkia Lyaine Leonei
Summary: This is a semi-fanfic of "The Cell," but I did write it before I saw the movie...


Kyrie Eleison - Lord, Have Mercy  
  
  
The Campbell Center, sometime in July 2006...  
  
"So, what is she in for?"  
  
The voice scared the burly police officer, who was getting way too accustomed to the silence of the area. He turned around slowly as a brunette woman walked up to him,and snickered as he looked the lady up and down. "I thought they were sending me a psychiatrist."  
  
"Dr. Laurel T. Baker, at your service," she replied as she stepped up closer to the window. "So, what is she in for?" she asked again.  
  
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he huffed.  
  
"Well, I guess I'll have to find out for myself. Open the door, please."  
  
"You can't be serious."  
  
"Sir, I understand that you have nothing but my safety in your best interests, but I have a job to do and I would like it if I could do it with as little resistance as possible from you," the doctor explained.  
  
The officer finally relented. "Okay, Dr. Laurel T. Baker, step right this way." She didn't move until he had unlocked and opened the cell door. "Well, what are you waiting for?"  
  
"This is a very dangerous process. There's a chance that I might not make it out of there alive," she whispered as she stared at the young girl.  
  
"Out of where?" The officer was confused now. The cell was a small one, and the girl had been labeled nonviolent the day she arrived. How could this lady think she was in danger?  
  
"Her mind," she replied, and shut the door behind her. She turned and faced the young Hispanic girl. "Hi." The girl didn't reply. "Brunei? That's your name, right?" She took the silence as an affirmative. "That's a really pretty name. Where did it come from?"  
  
"My father named me," Brunei replied.  
  
"Really?" Dr. Baker asked. "Tell me about him. What was he like?"  
  
Brunei obviously didn't feel like talking about her Puerto Rican father.   
  
"Okay..." Dr. Baker sighed. This was harder than she thought. She looked down at the small device before her. The scientists had told her to use it when she was ready to initiate the process. She looked up at Brunei's light brown eyes, and reached out for her.  
  
Brunei jumped away.   
  
"I'm sorry," Dr. Baker told her, honest. "You just have... such pretty hair. Has anyone ever told you that?"  
  
She had hit the jackpot. Brunei instinctively reached for her long, dark-auburn hair. The waves fell smoothly down her back, soft as rain. It was obviously her favorite feature. Brunei nodded, smiling a bit.   
  
"Really?" Dr. Baker asked, smiling. There was no denying it. It was time.   
  
Dr. Baker stood, noticing that Brunei didn't respond to her movement. Something was seriously wrong with this girl, and she intended to figure out what. Dr. Laurel T. Baker took a deep breath, and pushed the button.  
  
"Kyrie Eleison..."   
  
"Latin?" Laurel thought, listening to the choir, her eyes closed. "Lord, have mercy..." she translated. She smiled, laughing softly to herself. She had never felt so content in her life. It was like she was in Heaven.  
  
"Laurel?" a very young girl's voice called out to her. "Laurel, come play with me!"  
  
Laurel rolled over and opened her eyes to see a young Brunei standing before her, dressed all in white. She fit in quite nicely with the sky blue background adorned with clouds. Brunei giggled, and came over to her. "Do you like it here?" Brunei asked.  
  
"Very much. It's so peaceful here," Laurel replied. "Where are we?"  
  
"My secret place," Brunei whispered. "I used to come here, whenever I felt bad. Everytime some one made fun of me or hurt my feelings... I'd just come here, and no one could touch me."  
  
"You didn't have an easy childhood, did you?" Laurel asked, her psychological instinct taking over.  
  
"No. And you know what?" Brunei leaned in closer, as if sharing a deep, dark secret with Laurel.  
  
"What?"   
  
"It gets worse."  
  
The landscape changed so dramatically, Laurel felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She stood up and looked around, fearing the worst. She was right.   
  
She was in Hell, or at least Brunei's idea of it.   
  
"Welcome," a teenage Brunei spoke up, materializing before her, dressed all in black. "We hope you enjoy your stay," she laughed sarcastically.  
  
"Brunei... what is this place?" Laurel asked.  
  
"You know where you are, and you deserve to be," Brunei told her, pacing.   
  
"Me?" Laurel asked. "What did I do?"  
  
"Look at you, with your fancy college education, your undeniable good looks, and your superior white skin. You know, you're not better than me. Not at all. But you think you are. Well, let me tell you a thing or two about me. I went to college, the same New York college my daddy went to, on a full scholarship. Not that I needed it! I was working two jobs, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I had all the money I needed. You know how I got it? I took all my dreams, all my nightmares, all my hatred, and turned them into stories. And you know what? People loved them. I sent my family to Disney World on one freaking paycheck!" Brunei paused to take a breath. "But still, they wouldn't accept me."  
  
"Who wouldn't accept you?" Laurel asked.  
  
"That town. My sister was queen of that town! Homecoming queen, and head cheerleader, and blah, blah, BLAH!" Brunei screamed. "She was queen of that town because she was half-white! But me, no, I have the Puerto Rican blood in me. They either didn't believe I was Puerto Rican, or didn't care because it meant I wasn't one of them. I hated them so much..."  
  
"And you wanted revenge," Laurel realized.  
  
"Now, I'm not a very vengeful person by nature, but they had just gone too far."  
  
"How did you get back at them?"  
  
"I hit them where it hurt. I dated the best guys, broke their hearts, and left them sobbing in the gutters. I mocked the girls, told their secrets, and destroyed their reputations," Brunei explained. "And then, as the icing on the cake, I killed my partner, and left him outside the band room, for the beloved students to find. Of course, they never thought it was me. Even though I had wreaked havoc on their society, they didn't tell a word of it to each other, so no one else knew what the others had gone through. None of them knew how evil I was to every last one of them."  
  
"Did it make you feel better? Getting back at them?"  
  
"For awhile, yes," Brunei sighed. "But then the pain came back. I had to do something to make me feel better again."  
  
"Your hate is like a drug," Laurel explained.  
  
"And it's time for the next dose."  
  
Laurel went through another painful change of scenery. Now she was in the middle of a college campus, presumably the one Brunei had attended.  
  
"UB. The University of Buffalo," Brunei defined.  
  
"Where you and your father went to?" Laurel asked.  
  
"Right-i-o," Brunei replied, looking around the vast campus. "I love it here. This was were I got my freedom. The day I moved to New York, everything changed. It was like it was a brand new world, a brand new high. I was popular, rich, and on top of the world. I had power, you know? The power to walk into Best Buy and purchase a brand new computer with my own hard earned money. The power to call up the Seventeen magazine editor and have her beg me to publish a story or interview the latest boy band. The power to truthfully say to myself in the mirror, I am somebody. I am some one. I am Brunei," she trailed off as she looked up to the window of her old dorm suite.  
  
"And you forgot all about that town?" Laurel asked.  
  
"Oh, definitely. They were the last thing on my mind. Until..."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Well, let me tell a bit more about that first guy. The reason I killed him. See, he was a total wrestling freak, and I, being the evil little thing I was, went into the wrestling business just to spite him. I was having a great time ignoring his emails while I toured the US during my summer vacation. Then it happened. I went to an arena in Oklahoma City, and there he was, pretending that he was somebody, just because he knew me. I was so mad..." Brunei sighed. "That was the day my husband asked me to marry him. I wasn't ready, but I figured, why not rub this is my old friend's face? I accepted, and became part of the biggest empire in the world. My friend was devastated. I was ecstatic. So, I went back to see him, and I killed him. Made it look like suicide, of course. They all thought he had jumped off the top of the band room. Poor guy."  
  
Laurel didn't say anything. This was really deep.  
  
"The next murder, of course, was my husband," Brunei explained.  
  
"Your husband?" Laurel asked, shocked.  
  
The scenery changed again, and Laurel found herself in a wrestling ring. There was Brunei, dressed in wrestling attire, pacing the ring.   
  
"Don't you love the atmosphere of this place?" Brunei asked. "The intensity, the rage, the admiration. The feeling that they didn't care if the wrestling was real or not, as long as it was believable. This was another high in itself. I loved it."  
  
"More than you loved your husband?"  
  
Brunei laughed softly, remembering. "I loved him. I just wasn't ready. I was so young, and I hadn't had a chance to live my life. I had such strong feelings for so many of the other wrestlers, but never got to be with them, because I had married so young. I hated what I had done, and wished for an easy way out. A way to get rid of him without hurting him, or losing my money, or losing everyone's respect. Then it came to me."  
  
"Kill him?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. But I had to make it believable."  
  
"Which is what the wrestling business is all about," Laurel realized.  
  
"You're catching on, now," Brunei laughed. She held the ropes so Laurel could follow her out. "Maybe I'm not as crazy as you think."  
  
"I don't think..." Laurel began, then stopped herself. This girl knew what she was talking about. She changed the subject. "How can we walk through this?"  
  
"These are my memories. I walk them all the time in my mind, and now, you're becoming a part of my mind, so... They're accepting you as normal circumstance," she explained as they walked to the back stage of the arena.  
  
This was what she had been warned about, Laurel remembered. If she stayed here too long, or the machine malfunctioned, she'd be trapped here forever.  
  
"Oh, don't worry so much. You're not trapped. My mind is just getting used to your presence, so the trip can be more... realistic," Brunei said with a smirk. "Here's an example now."   
  
Laurel looked in the direction Brunei had been looking at, but nothing was there. She turned back around and noticed that Brunei was gone, too. Oh, God, she told herself, looking around the room. This can't be good.  
  
"Brunei?" a male voice asked.   
  
Laurel turned around and saw a dark-haired male enter the room. Brunei's husband, no doubt. Laurel began to realize what was going on. Brunei's mind had accepted her, so Brunei could control her placement just as she could control her own. She could show her the past, show her the present, or show her what she wished to be the future. Or, even, what she believed the past was.  
  
"No..." Laurel whispered.  
  
"What's the matter, Dr. Baker?" the man asked her, turning to her. She could she Brunei's eyes behind his face. This was her fantasy, her mind, her reality. "You don't want to play with me?" Brunei's husband asked in Brunei's voice. Laurel screamed as he threw a garbage can lid at her, like a Frisbee, and it turned into a saw. She ducked just in time, and it disappeared from view. The male began walking toward her, slowly yet surely. "You know something, Laurel? He really loved my hair," Brunei told her. Laurel turned to see a road behind her, and began running.   
  
She looked back and, sure enough, he was still following her. Even though she was running and he was walking, he seemed to be gaining on her. It didn't make sense, but, then again, neither did Brunei, and this was Brunei's world, not hers.  
  
"You know," he said in the very young Brunei's voice. "I've never had a real best friend. No one else ever wanted to enter my world. It was as if... they were scared of me. Why would anyone be scared of me?"  
  
He was right behind her now, and grabbed her shoulders. Before her eyes, he changed into another man. An older version of himself. "And," the teenage Brunei asked. "Do you know who else I killed that night? My father-in-law. He never saw it coming either. But he deserved it. They both deserved it, for taking advantage of me. They also referred to me as 'The Kid.' I hated that!" she screamed, turning back into the child version of herself. "I..." She turned into the teenage version. "am..." She turned into the college version. "not..." She turned into the wrestling version. "a..." She turned back into the normal version. "CHILD!"  
  
Laurel shrieked as Brunei flung her to the ground, glowing in rage. "Well, Dr. Baker?" she asked, a knife materializing in her hand. "Did you find out what you need to know?" She stood over her, smiling evily. "Dr. Baker?" she called, her voice growing more and more distant as the name echoed in Laurel's mind. "Nooo!" Brunei screamed, and Laurel's world went black.  
  
"Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) Qui tollis peccata mundi (Who takes away the sins of the world) Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace)..." the choir sang, softer and softer.  
  
"Dr. Baker?"   
  
"Brunei?"   
  
It wasn't Brunei. It was the officer. "Did you find out what you need to know?"  
  
Dr. Baker snapped up and looked around the room. "Where's Brunei?"  
  
"Dr. Baker, you need to rest. You've had a tough time," the officer told her.  
  
"What happened?" she asked. "Where's Brunei?"  
  
"Listen, I fell asleep out there, and they didn't know that you were in there. We're really sorry... They had just injected her when I made it over there, and they barely got you out of there alive."  
  
"Injection? What are you talking about?" Laurel asked, her head pounding.  
  
"Didn't you know? Today was the day of her execution. Brunei's dead." 


End file.
